Bloodbound
by Wends
Summary: [AU] The Prince's reign of Los Angeles comes under heavy political fire and turmulous tension between Clans deepens. And Heero just wanted to have an uneventful unlife...[HQ,HD,QT.Rated for sex, violence, & stuff]
1. Watchful Shadows

Disclaimer: I in no way own Gundam W. Don't sue me; I'm simply an E-5 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.

Story warnings/notes: Massively AU, placed in modern times. 4x1, 4x3, 1x2 planned for later on. May seem OOC, but the majority of this is thoughts occurring within the main character's head – his outward actions should be mostly IC. Please R&R. Hope you enjoy!

_-BEGIN FIC-_

_Prelude__  
_

I lifted my glass to my lips.

Once again I'd found myself at this small club, swept into the manic thrall that encases humanity's youth during these chaotic times, inundated with their harsh pounding music and vague lighting and crass drinks. I never used to volunteer my presence to establishments such as this – indeed, until recently, I'd found such activities an anathema. I still was outside of my element even now, though I'd been familiarizing myself with this foreign atmosphere for the entirety of this spring season. Since I'd laid eyes on him.

Normally I would spend my hours in my dojo, my home outside of the glorious manor I share with he to whom I owe my existence. Or I would spend my time with the owner of that manor, accompanying him to his pointless social affairs to ensure his safety (sometimes he can be so very careless, and that servant of his is so blithe that he can not be relied upon to protect my provider), accompanying him to his meetings despite the glowers and stares such obvious disregard for protocol drew down upon us, accompanying him wherever fate drew him.

After all, it was due to his relative kindness that I had my dojo, that I had my continued existence and ability to continue attempting to attain perfection.

But tonight, as I had been doing quite often recently, I was ignoring the sanctity of my personal dojo, my obligations to my benefactor and the call of my Art to sit amongst the most surly of this modern era's youth and watch them waste their frivolous lives with needless activities, drugs and alcohol.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what he felt when he first laid eyes upon me. If this obsession is what filled his heart, encouraging him to do what he had done and grant me my continued opportunity to work upon perfecting that impossibly flawed union between mind, body and soul through my Art.

I'd felt this once before. However, the last time this sensation stirred my soul was before he had granted me his ultimate gift – or, as many would see it, his ultimate curse. I'd not felt such a sensation since that moment, since the fire between us had cooled to pleasant embers that warmed our tainted souls, no longer fiercely overwhelming but still present. No, what I felt now was not the pleasurable warmth that existed between myself and he who'd given me my current situation – it was the burning blast of heat that had first overwhelmed me when I'd laid eyes upon him, repeated now as I watched the boy who'd become my obsession.

Pressing my lips to the rim of my glass, I tilted the vessel lightly to let the warm liquid within its confines wet my tongue. The tainted alcohol was still pleasantly viscous as it slipped down my throat.

That boy had no idea how dangerous of a situation he was in. If he'd known what manner of beast was watching him and those around him, he'd certainly flee.

No, he was mindless of the situation as all of those others he danced and drank with were, heedless of the multitudes of eyes resting upon their joyous activities.

Perhaps that is what's drawn me every night since I first glanced upon him to follow him, to look after him. Because he is so very ignorant of the danger he is in, so freely gallivanting through the night's black traps, mercy and luck being all that saved him from falling.

I glowered at another who shared my traits, seated but two tables to my left.

A few tense moments, a challenge rising to his brown eyes that was matched in my Prussian blue orbs, red bloodlust and fierce determination visible in blackened pupils. A calm surveillance of one another's auras.

He predictably backed down, his lips turned in a most delicious frown of defeat as he lifted his glass once more and demanded that the bar's dedicated operator give him his check.

The boy I'd been watching would be safe for yet another night.

Lifting my glass again I smirked slightly, a soft chortle rattling dry lungs as I took a sip of my beverage and watched him laugh and drink with his college friends.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

If I were a more poetic man, I would proclaim that it was destiny that drew us together that fateful winter night. However I am not; I simply see it as an incidental meeting that's given rise to my obsessive devotion to a child who isn't even aware of his silent protector.

It was nearing the end of the season, the last of winter's rains sweeping over the land to soak it in preparation for the coming heat of springtime. A cold and miserable time, loathed by weathermen and hatefully cursed by those people who worshiped the sun.

I couldn't care less about the weather. It has no impact on a person such as myself. All it did was wet my hair and clothing, bogging me down with extra weight that was hardly noticeable as I went through my daily practices in my dojo's open-air courtyard.

That night I'd been released from any obligations to my benefactor, turned loose as he wished to devote time to his neglected slave. I accepted his disregard for my longings as I had been for quite some time.

He had his new toy. I would grant him his playtime, though soft jealousy stirred in my soul.

I turned my attention more towards my Art as he who'd given me all that I have ignored my wishes in favor of maintaining his doll's favors. I wasn't allowing his devotion to that mindless thing to bother me; after all, in a relatively short time, it would be gone. Discarded. Wasted by time. Destroyed by the march of the bane of all mortality, decayed beyond recognition. I am a patient man.

I am also a liar.

His dedication to that sorry pet of his disturbed me to the bottom of my soul; that fact I never allowed to reach my eyes as I looked upon him. I always regarded him with the same professional courtesy we'd shown one another since we'd first met, with the same enthusiasm I'd always given to him when he'd asked anything of me, my pleasure at being recognized and necessitated by him overriding my terrible jealousy.

All that suffered due to my imbalance was my Art, a regrettable consequence in of itself as it was my existence's singular focus beside the wishes of my benefactor. For so long have I been working upon the union of all that I am, for so many years have I strived at that impossible perfection. Those emotions drawn from the depths of my tainted soul by that doll were throwing off my timing, disturbing my mind and heart so that my body's performance was terribly affected.

I am lucky that my lack of ability to concentrate upon my own situation had not so thoroughly disrupted my skills that I could not protect myself. Indeed, if I'd been unable to protect myself I never would have been able to rescue that boy.

I'd encountered him upon the streets of my provider's City's west side, all of his six foot tall frame hunched under his umbrella and hurriedly scurrying along the sidewalk. He was heading at his rapid pace towards the University – obviously a college student, given the backpack bouncing between his shoulder blades.

I watched him blandly, as I watch the rest of this city's scurrying masses. It wasn't until the attack that I took special notice of him.

I still don't know what it was that moved me to strike. I wish to attribute it to the tensions between our Clans, to the rather bold statements made by that beast's primogen to my benefactor concerning our place within our City. But my soul protests that proclamation, whispering that it was something more, something deeper, that had driven me to so very nearly destroy that mist of obscurity that protects us all from humanity's prying eyes.

All I knew was that my eyes which had been so focused on that tall, slender child, tracing the hard lines of his lanky young body as they were outlined by his dark cloths' eager efforts to cling to his skin, watching the limp braid of chestnut hair sodden by rainwater flap gracelessly along that backpack nestled in the center of the boy's thin back, snapped their focus to the shadows that proliferated the street upon which he traveled. The bushes that lined the sidewalk he walked along held a predator.

I knew that predator. I'd not dealt with him personally; the owner of the manor in which I resided had reconciled our last encounter with him. The creature that hid in the bushes on the street I traveled had slid unnoticed past my room (I would have liked this to be an impossibility, but the imbalance in my spirit thanks to my conflicting interests so far as my provider and his toy are concerned has unfortunately degraded my skills to such minuscule proportions). The first strike had roused me. By the time I'd reached the room that predator had slithered into, the battle was already finished.

I'd never thought that the mutt would lick his wounds so quickly. Or perhaps this hunt was necessary to complete the process; his face was still lacerated heavily from the racking strike of my benefactor's rings.

Time veritably stopped as I stared. Hunched over, balanced perfectly upon the tips of his toes, the stalker of the boy I had been casually taking note of let his mouth open in eager anticipation. He was hungry. He intended to feed.

He needed to feed – the attack he'd suffered at my dear provider's hands when he'd attempted to sabotage the sanctity of his manor in order to challenge him by destroying his little pet had drained him significantly. I still questioned my benefactor's motives for keeping the creature in existence; when asked, he'd simply replied that deepening preexisting tensions between the Clans weren't worth the beast's destruction and that powers higher than he prohibited wanton destruction of others without substantial cause.

I burst into motion, my innate celerity sweeping me from the opposing side of the street from the clueless child to those bushes in an eye's singular blink. Eyes narrowed, I clamped my hand easily around the throat of that crouched creature, forcing him upright to glower into his face properly.

The man I'd snared in my grip was just as startled over my activities as I was. Eyes wide, he snarled before glaring back at me and gripping my wrist.

Harsh claws dug into my denim jacket's sleeve. The moon's wan light danced over my prisoner's features as he delved into the dark recesses of his tainted curse, drawing power from his last feed and that vitae which still coursed through his collapsed veins.

I watched with bland disinterest as his jaw extended with his nose, forming an elongated snout. The end of that snout blackened and erupted long wiry whiskers, huffing and snorting at me. Ears elongating, they twitched before turning back and flattening themselves against a slightly compressed skull, sprouting thick brown fur as they did. Eyes narrowed, glowing a sickly green from their fur-lined sockets.

I've never questioned why those of the Gangrel always make my stomach turn. Nothing worse than a Kindred so similar to those foul Lupine who haunt my provider's City's nearby forestall lands. The lack of discipline, the lack of willpower, the very lack of humanity is enough to make one nauseous. And I'll not even begin on how these mutts reek when soaked by winter's rains.

He snarled at me, fangs bared, before daring to open his jaws to speak while he thrashed within my grip, trying desperately to claw my hand from his neck.

If it were a Lupine, I would have tightened my grip upon his neck to save my ears from his lamentations. Cutting off a wolf's breath is the quickest way to silence its voice. But it was Kindred, a creature that did not require breath – I chose instead to throw him across the street.

He bounced and skidded across the pavement with a yelp and a squeal, thundering gracelessly like the dog he was into the alley that ran beside the coffee shop I'd been considering going into when the boy with his chestnut braid caught my eye. No one saw what it was that had flown so gracelessly from one side of the street to the other. Everyone turned at the racket, wondering what had caused it.

The boy was staring as well.

I took that opportunity to slip into the protection provided by those shadows that surrounded me, the lessons taught to me by my provider's strange, crazed friend Leon Ramirez coming in quite handy.

Hidden adequately, I filled my gaze with the vision of that child's brilliant cobalt blue eyes.

Beautiful.

The moment was ended when his watch beeped. With a startled cry, he glanced at the accessory's face and took off running down the street, none the wiser of what had so very nearly happened.

My eyes followed him as he ran, his braid waggling behind him as his feet rapidly carried him away.

Something in my chest had moved when I'd set my gaze upon that boy's face. A sensation I'd not felt in ages boiled in my soul.

I swore to myself that I would set my gaze upon that boy again.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

I'd discovered many things about the boy I'd saved that night during my sojourns into the nightlife he enjoyed. My hearing is quite decent, so listening in on the conversations held between him and his friends wasn't ever a problem. Indeed, with as boisterous as their vocalizations became when they were intoxicated, one hardly needed any skill in eves dropping to partake of their talk.

His name was Duo Maxwell. He was a junior at the nearby University and a recently legalized drinker majoring in Theology. His friends, Allen and Miguel, never spoke of his parents though they spoke of one another's mothers and fathers with regularity. Perhaps he was an orphan. Or perhaps his relationship with his parents was one of bitterness and hatred, and he preferred they never be spoken of. I didn't know, nor did I venture from my protective shadows to engage the boy in conversation and discover the answer to that question. However, his church was mentioned once or twice – Maxwell Church. A coincidental matching of last name and church name? I'd have to look into that.

There had been an incident nearly sixteen years ago in this city concerning religious persecution. My benefactor would be able to give me details if I asked him; I myself had been in New York, investigating a possible link between the primogen of the Ventrue and a Sabbat operative with heavy connections in the phosphorus industry.

The boy was a chipper individual who had a strong liking for Red Headed Sluts and an eye for others of his same gender. Indeed, he was constantly ribbed by his friends about a girl named Hilde that he'd been putting off lately due to his infatuation with a boy on campus named Tony. He was also adamantly against the casual usage of drugs displayed by his drinking companions, though this was somewhat hypocritical – I'd witnessed him sampling powders and joints on occasion, if just to appease them.

Never once did I think to approach the boy. Indeed, with as much experience as I'd garnered during my years of existence in the finer arts of socializing, I wouldn't know where to begin to converse.

My provider was the one who specialized in speaking with others, though that specialization was bent more towards manipulation than simply mingling. I myself cared nothing about social graces or status. My only reason for attending my benefactor's gatherings was to protect him as his pet was incapable of doing. I recognize that social status is important in our Clan, but I truly have no use for it other than to gather enough prestige amongst my 'peers' that they would leave me to my own devices. I care not for Clan politics – that is the forte of he who has given me everything. I care only for the solitude and peace to perfect my Art, to join mind and body and soul into a single, indestructible, harmonized mechanism to serve my own desires and those of my benefactor.

My lack of enthusiasm to play at social politics has promoted my continued ineptitude when it comes to making a clean introduction. I didn't want to frighten the boy away by awkwardly stumbling into his life.

He was too fascinating to scare. He was too beautiful to chase from my sight.

Even if it were from the shadows, I wanted to remain close to him. I wanted to protect him, even as I protect my benefactor.

I wanted him to be a part of my existence.

That final wish could never be reality – my continued existence would be something entirely incomprehensible to one such as him.

He was a normal college student, living a normal life. A person such as he would scoff at the very notion that persons such as myself exist.

He was twenty-one years of age.

I had recently started my sixteenth decade of existence.

I am a vampire, and have been since 1865.

_tbc..._


	2. History Unfolded

Review replies:  
Ah, Yurikitsune, you're my greatest fan! (prostrates self, kisses feet) I'm hoping that you like this story, as strangely AU as it is. (li'l smile) Doesn't compare to Mellon Collie, but this is more like a distraction from the plot-of-doom. :)

Disclaimer: I in no way own Gundam W. Don't sue me; I'm simply an E-5 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.

Story warnings/notes: Massively AU, placed in modern times. 4x1, 4x3, 1x2 planned for later on. Hope you enjoy.

_-BEGIN FIC-_

It was summer in Osaka.

The trade capital of the ancient nation of Japan was abuzz with life and activity as the sun's round body burned below the edge of the land, its brilliant light that still struck towards the dragons' skies sinking slowly into its earthen grave to rest for the night and give the moon her chance to illuminate the heavens.

I would never forget that night.

A grand tournament was being held near the center of Osaka. Three dojos, my own included, were competing for honor and recognition within the small and frowned upon martial arts community by setting their most proficient warriors against one another. I had the esteemed distinction of being selected by the establishment at which I trained to represent their interests in one of those prestigious battles.

I'd planned to utilize the competition as an opportunity to attempt a selection of new techniques I'd been practicing. My master had told me they would be ineffective, my focus being so instilled upon my body and balance that I'd lose sight of my foe. What he did not understand was that those moves did not steal my focus from me, but rather reinforced it, harnessing unity between all aspects of myself to drive my efforts towards the focus of my inevitable attack.

It was not a gathering of fighting moves that I utilized. No, it was an art.

Art… now that'd an interesting topic.

In some ways I suppose I can be considered vulgar and crude by others who are more socially involved than myself. My view of what my culture considers precious is somewhat biased and base.

Daintily painted scrolls? Some invoke appreciation and fascination. But most garner no emotion from me, being overtly simplistic and ridiculously chaste with the touch of ink brushes.

Sculpture? So much of it is lifeless and bland, simple relief carved from simple stone, unattractive to its nonexistent depths.

Architecture? Bluh. It has never invoked anything in me. Some people proclaim that the grand Palace that was being erected in the newly capitalized and renamed Edo was a proclamation to the levity of the new spirit of Japan, but all I could see were the heavy lines of earthly humans, in no way risen to the Dragons' Heavens as everyone thought.

Music? A pretty conglomeration of notes. So much of what is written by my culture's musicians is done to appease a crowd. If only those composers would instead put their spirits instead of their emptied wallets' wishes into those works, it might be spectacular.

The martial arts were the only art form I recognized as beautiful at all times. A simple move, a simple touch, a simple glance and corresponding response, all timed to perfection, all harnessing every aspect of the performer's body, mind and soul. Requiring discipline beyond what any of our hasty artists who produced their paintings and their songs possessed, requiring time beyond the scope of a human's life to perfect, it was an impossibly flawed collection of dreams and possibilities in all of its forms. Whether it be kendo, budo, aikijitsu, jujitsu, karate… all are beautiful. All contain such incredible potential for that master who discovers his art's hidden secrets, its shadowed avenues for ultimate harmony and in it undefeatable power.

It wasn't the potential power that captured my attention. It was the beauty of the fighter in action. Graceful and lithe, body sculpted to such extravagance that the sculptors' statues were shamed by their envy, the practitioners of the martial arts possessed feline smooth movements and balance unattainable by normal men. To become a proficient artist, one has to know every aspect of their body, to know how every stimuli of the environment about oneself – a gust of wind, the pull of gravity, the shifting of gravel beneath the toes – would affect one's position and potential. He has to know every potential held within his own frame, his strength, his weakness, his agility, his speed. He has to know and love those aspects of himself, accepting both might and fault equally and weaving it into the web that is his whole being.

Knowledge of the body was but the first aspect. Knowledge of the mind meshed with it, as knowledge of the body's abilities was first thrust upon it. The mind's abilities to focus upon the body's actions, the abilities to focus upon the enemy's actions, was irrefutably as important as knowing one's own body. To perform, one had to think. What move was to be next, where next would the foot fall, which hand would be curled into what configuration to be utilized to land a blow, how balance would be affected and whether or not following with a roundhouse kick offensive would be to one's benefit or simply leave one open to attack. What the enemy was capable of, whether he had the room or ability to dodge or retaliate, what art he could be capable of utilizing, what his stance was suggesting his next move would possibly be. Whether or not it was wise to be on the offensive, the defensive, or present at all.

And finally, spirit. The soul of the fighter, the true beauty behind the entire machine, which bound body and mind together with determination and devotion. The heart of the fighter, dedicated towards honor, driven to attain the perfect harmony between all aspects of oneself and in that harmony discover the perfection inherent in the human creature that so eluded us all.

The tournament was the perfect place to introduce a new aspect to the art all of us who practiced it longed for, a new avenue to take to reach that trinity's union that escaped the scope of mortal man.

My master was upset when I simply glowered at him and blandly stated my intentions with a snappish, "I'll do it my way."

His eyes widened as he stared at me, black brows all but vanishing under raven-pitched bangs that loosely hung their tips over his expressive, dark eyes. "What? Yuy-kun, I told you. Stick to normal techniques. You will be victorious with your strength."

I resolutely ignored him as I pulled my towel from its comfortable place across my shoulders and stretched, preparing to enter that circle drawn upon the park's ground in the dirt.

"You gaijin dog! Listen to me!"

Stopping for one moment, I glanced over my shoulder, my blue eyes narrowing even as my brown eyebrows furrowed. One huff of breath escaped my nostrils before I turned back towards the circle that awaited my presence, refusing to dignify my instructor with a response.

As my opposition's champion entered the ring, I closed my eyes and sighed. I had been riled and angered by my instructor's words. I needed to calm down, to find my center and neutralize my roiling emotions to rediscover the peace necessary to be effective.

Taking slow, steady breaths, I let my frame slump. I resolutely turned my focus not on the aghast stares of those who watched me, who saw my brown hair and my tall frame as something reprehensible, but rather on my own desires, my own heart. I would prove that the techniques I had been practicing for these last fifteen years of my life were viable, even if they were performed by the body of a foreign man.

My father would have wished it.

My mother would have cheered me on.

Deep within my soul, I prayed that they were witnessing my deeds from whatever afterlife they had met when they'd perished during the battles and raids of Bakumatsu. That my father resided in whatever glory awaited those who'd died defending their charges when he'd fallen defending the Shogun as his duty called upon him to do. That my mother, sweet foreigner stranded in this harsh and unforgiving culture years ago, dwelled in the Heaven she always preached to me about.

I opened my eyes.

My opponent, to my pleasure, did not wear the distaste that was reflected in some of the hissed criticisms breathed by our audience. His black eyes were focused on me with seriousness, never wavering, shining with the wisdom of at least two if not three decades of life. His frame, shorter than my own but far more broad in the shoulders and heavy with muscle, was sturdy and planted, giving no hint as to what he was capable of other than incredible might. He was apparently taking me to be a serious contender, even with my leanly muscled body and my youthful looks granted by my mere nineteen years of existence.

That pleased me.

Slowly circling one another, we watched one another's stances and movements, studying footfalls and breathing patterns. His frame was loose and relaxed, not tensed and rugged as I had thought it would be – he would be depending not on strength as I had originally suspected, but rather on grace and fluidity. His eyes studiously grazed my own presence.

The moment of attack came within a heartbeat.

He launched towards me with surprising speed and agility, prompting me to immediately sway to my left to avoid the punch that was aimed for my head. As his foot lashed towards my sternum, I handily ducked, rolling with ease upon my back to come to my feet again a body's length away from him.

He sprang forward again, both fists balled, both eagerly aiming for my torso. My eyes absorbed the sight, my mind disseminated the proper response, my feet shuffled my body away from his murderously quick assault.

My ears rang with the stunned silence of our audience. Apparently they'd expected this 'gaijin dog' to fall with my opposition's first attack.

We danced about the circle we'd been given as our arena, him pressing his attack and me artfully dodging every blow. I was waiting for him to tire, but he apparently had more stamina than I had given him credit for – he was hardly slowing, even as my legs began to feel the strain of so much movement being forced from them.

I had to take the offensive.

Taking a step to my right rather than my left as instinct and training told me to, I swept dangerously close to his kick, catching his heel with the locks of my bangs that swept before my face. He was as stunned as I was at my own motion, taking a critical moment to put himself back at his center and regain his balance.

That critical moment was all I needed.

My center balanced upon my toes, I took a single step forward and plowed my strength and spirit into my hands, thrusting them forward as one to connect with his side. I felt a slight smirk turn my lips as I felt a delicate rib crack beneath my touch.

He winced and backed away, his feet staggering without grace.

I pressed the attack, my next move taking me from one foot to the other and slipping me into a simple spin, my foot aimed towards his head. He ducked as I expected – I had already anticipated that inevitability, and lashed with the other foot, spinning in air as the whirlwind does through dusty plains.

My other foot cleanly connected with the crook of his neck below his jaw, dragging him to the ground as I fell. The difference between our tumbles was that mine was most certainly planned. His was not.

My foot remained under his jaw, dragging him with ease towards the crevice of my other leg's knee (or more appropriately, dragging my own lighter body towards his to get his head into the position I desired it to be in). Once there, I lashed with my uppermost hand, my other keeping my body from contacting the ground, and gripped a handful of his dark hair to keep him steady.

My foot released his jaw. My leg slammed into the tender spot between his Adam's Apple and chin, pinning his head between my legs.

"One twist of my legs and I will snap your neck," I calmly informed my opponent.

With a resolute sigh, he realized that the single moment he had for retaliation would be the single moment that brought his death; he slapped his hand upon the dust of our arena's ground as his show of resignation and defeat.

The tournament grounds were silent in stunned surprise. The favored combatant had lost. My instructor's face was a priceless cross between hateful displeasure that I had disobeyed him and not maintained the techniques I had been taught, and smug satisfaction that I had shown his establishment's superiority.

We simultaneously rose and bowed to one another, our bends at the waist deep with respect for one another's abilities. Silence followed us both as we turned our backs to each other and strode from the dusty circle that had been our fighting grounds.

One set of hands very quietly applauded my efforts.

That was the first time I'd ever laid eyes upon the man who was to be my benefactor.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

I'd watched four other battles play themselves to their completions within that circle, my worn frame seated upon the ground and maintained warm under the towel was loosely draped over my shoulders. My instructor was busily lavishing in praise and glory thanks to my victory and the superior performance of another of his pupils.

The one who'd applauded my victory had not left. He patiently waited the conclusion of the evening's martial art display before turning his attention to something other than the circle and its encased warriors. He'd approached me after the tournament had come to its termination, his hands lightly falling upon one another with soft claps. "Bravo," he stated, his oddly accented English speaking of some foreign nationality I was unfamiliar with. Odd, I found that; I'd had many dealings with the Dutch who traveled to our lands to trade, and with English and Norwegian persons. His accent was implacable.

I arched a brow in reply, wondering why he had wandered towards me even as my eyes glanced over him, sizing him up as if he were a potential foe.

He was short in stature, perhaps six inches shorter than my considerable five feet and seven, and almost painfully thin as was obvious from the skinny design of his neck. His business suit, crafted of soft white fabric (obviously from over the oceans), encased his body comfortably, hiding his true build with expert grace. Small feet clad in shining white leather dress loafers carried him to stand before me. A golden watch chain dangled from his pants' left fore pocket. Golden rings and golden cufflinks glistened in the starlight and that orange tinge cast by the newly lit street lamps. A bright gold buckle held a white leather belt in place about the waist of those fitted pants, visible for brief instances as the front of that suit's jacket opened with his light claps and minor movements. A soft blue satin kerchief poked its folded head from his left breast pocket. A decorative royal blue cravat wrapped around that tiny neck, holding in the center of its folds a sizable diamond that sparkled with its own life as the stars do in the heavens.

Such a flamboyant display of wealth was not enough to hold my eye. No, what captured my attention was the boy who wore this ostentatious ensemble.

His skin was as pale as alabaster, shining without flaw in whatever light dared to grace him and be humbled by his perfection. Glistening platinum blonde hair, a shade I'd never had the pleasure of viewing before, fell in rolling waves about his face, tussled and wild, untamed and free. A round cherub's face smiled pleasantly at me, the soft cheeks and small chin eluding to a youthful age; I was guessing he was fourteen, perhaps fifteen years old.

Most incredible of all, though, were his eyes.

With the touch of lamp fire, they shone nearly as green as dark, fine jade or emeralds from over the seas. In the soft white light of the moon and the stars, they were blue, dark as the fathomless waters that surround Japan.

And those eyes were focused entirely on me, their amazing depths regarding every aspect of my person. In an instant my victory seemed nothing – indeed, nothing about my insignificant world seemed to amount to anything – as I felt so very tiny under that heavy gaze.

"Congratulations on your triumphant display," he said, switching his language from the English he had earlier greeted me with to my native tongue.

I was stunned. So stunned, in fact, that I let my mouth gape open.

A soft laugh erupted from his throat. I lavished in the sound; it was like soft ringing bells, pleasant and distant. He shook me from the sensation a moment later by simply stating, "Yes, I know your tongue. Please, accept my praise for your show of talent."

"Oh," I clumsily replied. "Thank you."

"You're quite welcome," he continued, his lips turning with a bright smile. "Truly, I've never seen fluidity to that level before. I'd not expected to see such grace in something so very primal."

I simply arched a brow as I stared at him. "Hn," I replied. Indeed, what was I to say? I'd never seen a foreigner attend one of our tournaments. I'd never heard of a foreigner who appreciated the finer aspects of the martial arts, and indeed recognized the strive for beauty and perfection in their depths. I'd witnessed gaijin tournaments. Paired fighters who attempted to knock one another silly with blows to the head, dancing gracelessly and roaring in rage, was nothing compared to the exquisiteness of our bouts; this, however, seemed to be preferred amongst those who traveled to our lands.

"Might I have your name?"

"Yuy. Heero."

He seemed to mull over the information I'd given him for a moment. "Ah yes, family name before the proper. Of course, of course…"

"And you?" I questioned, arching a brow.

"Winner. Quatre Raberba."

Nodding, I rose from my seat. "It's been a pleasure."

"Indeed, Yuy-san," the blonde teenager replied, a small smile lighting his pale lips. "Thank you for the pleasure you've given me. It's been quite some time since I'd seen Art that I could appreciate."

That stopped me. I had intended to return to my instructor's side, to bow my thanks to him for his permission to enter the tournament and return to the dojo for the night to rest. However, this boy – Quatre – had borne witness and recognized that what I took pride in was actually my Art.

"What do you mean?" I pressed, turning slightly to face him. My brows furrowed with a dire scowl upon my lips, my curiosity and suspicious nature making me irritable.

My glower didn't dim his spirits any. Instead, his smile deepened into something that wasn't so shallow and false, almost being reflected in those amazing eyes of his. "It's Art. I can recognize it. Good Art is something I've always been able to recognize, whether it is in paint or stone or music or form. It hasn't mattered to me for so very long; yours is the first I've been able to connect with in years."

I blinked stupidly as he closed his eyes.

Continuing, he drew a soft breath. "Most art is such a frivolous waste, anyway. Many artists have no belief in what they put on canvas or chisel into stone or play on their instruments. All they desire is the money and recognition, not the release of their souls. And those who do pour their hearts out… their methods are so repetitious. So bland. So pointless and lopsided and damned chipper."

I watched as his lips turned with a frown.

"They don't see the true nature of this god-forsaken world. They would never survive reality if they were forced to fully experience it. Their souls would be crushed beyond recognition."

"You sound bitter," I observed.

He laughed softly. "I suppose I do."

Quite a quizzical figure, this Quatre. For some odd reason, his soft loathing, the small glimmer of darkness that radiated from the perfect little boy before me enticed me. I wanted nothing more than to learn more of this curious, unearthly beautiful child.

"Perhaps you'd like the opportunity to explain yourself?" I asked, my voice carefully monitored to hide my eager intentions.

"Come again?" he questioned, arching a brow.

"I… am off to eat dinner. Perhaps you would accompany me," I said, stumbling gracelessly over a simple invitation.

He tilted his head slightly, a small smirk taking those lightly colored lips. "Hm. I accept. However, I can't be too late."

"Your parents would worry?" I questioned, immediately beginning to peruse the area for his guardians.

A sharp laugh burst from his frame. "Parents? Heavens, no. I've got business clients I must meet with before dawn, dear Yuy-san." Giggles shook him slightly even as he shook his head, lifting a finger to wipe hidden tears of mirth from his eyes. "Parents."

I stared at him. "Business clients…? But…."

Smiling still, his soft giggles upon his lips, Quatre Raberba Winner waved his finger before my eyes. "Lesson number one. Appearances can be deceiving. Never trust your eyes."

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

I'd taken him to a casual restaurant with reasonable fare for earthly prices – I simply went where I had intended to go for my dinner on my way to my instructor's dojo, and had him accompany me. After all, I am a pupil. My allowances are granted only with my victories in tournaments, and though I win my earnings aren't spectacular thanks to my rather lowly station within my dojo's infrastructure.

I'd taken him there rather than somewhere spectacular and outrageously expensive for two reasons. First off, I wasn't expecting him to pay (he offered to anyway, greatly alleviating me). Secondly, I wanted to be somewhere comfortable so I could relax and more thoroughly observe this beautiful creature I was escorting about.

As our first sampling of dinner was delivered to us, his tako laying lightly over rice and my udon steaming warmly, he cast a dazzling smile at me before beginning our conversation even as he lifted his chopsticks with surprisingly natural ease. "So, what drew you into the martial arts, Heero-kun?"

I started at that. Being referred to as a youngster by one who appeared to be no older than his fifteenth year of life? Was he attempting to insult me?

But then I remembered his words – 'Appearances can be deceiving. Never trust your eyes.' Certainly he would grant me an explanation later. Best to simply converse with him and discover what I could, I rationalized.

Clearing my throat, I lifted a plethora of noodles to my lips. Slurping them down hungrily, I chewed and swallowed before replying, "My father encouraged me. He recognized that I had potential and enrolled me in my dojo for instruction."

"Quite an insightful man," the boy softly replied.

"Aa."

"Is he proud of your accomplishments?" he questioned.

"I hope so," I answered with a small nod.

He tilted his head slightly, his soft bangs brushing over his lightly colored brows. "I see. Are you proud of your accomplishments?"

I arched a brow, focusing on his face as I chewed a piece of tofu I'd just placed in my mouth. Swallowing, I frowned and focused on my bowl.

"Why not?"

"I am not perfect," I simply replied.

A soft laugh flowed from his sculpted lips. "No one's perfect, Heero-kun. It's human nature to lust for perfection, but it's unobtainable within the span of mortal existence. Realization of that fact is wisdom. I take it you're not striving for wisdom?"

Blinking, I turned my attention from my bowl to his lips. Now whatever did he mean by that? It was almost insulting. Or complimentary, depending on how one looked at his statement.

Scooting his tako about on his plate, he turned his attention to his food even as I lifted my cup and took a sip of the sake we'd been served without answering his strange question. "Wisdom is highly overrated, in my opinion. It's never made great men. The great men of history are those who've ignored the quest for wisdom and strived for perfection, ignoring the fact that it's impossible to achieve during the course of a simple man's life. Michelangelo, Beethoven, Mozart, Donatello, DeVinci… none of them sought wisdom. They were radicals, crazed lunatics of their ages, looked upon as flawed or flooded with folly or maddened by the touch of inspiration's angels. Manic. Madmen. Idiots. Now they are legends, praised for their revolutionary accomplishments inspired by their very lack of wisdom that drove them to create the inhuman, the impossible."

"I concur."

"Eh?" the blonde child asked, blinking once as he was drawn out of his reflection by my simple statement.

"With what you're saying," I clarified. "Better to seek perfection than to give it up."

"Hm," he breathed with a smile taking his lips. "That's an attitude I haven't seen in years."

"Pardon the question, but I've got to know," I started after taking yet another sip of sake. "You're not as young as you look."

More of a statement than a question, I confess. I was fairly confident in my suspicions.

"Correct," he simply answered. "And you are as you appear? I am supposing nineteen, perhaps twenty?"

"Nineteen," I stated blandly.

"Mixed blood, too."

"Obviously."

He smiled vaguely. "Natively Japanese?"

"Yes. Why are you asking me all of this?" I snapped as I gripped my bowl, preparing to sip the liquid that rested within it that I'd been steadily depriving of vegetables and noodles over the course of our conversation.

Shrugging slightly, he let his smile fall. "I didn't mean to pry. I'm simply curious about you. It's so rare to meet persons devoted entirely to their Art to the extreme that you are. So few throw their lives and souls into what they believe in during this era. It's refreshing. Call it my inquisitiveness about a person who believes as I once did – that, with determination and a lust for completion, one can accomplish the perfection that all humanity proclaims is impossible to achieve."

"Hn," I snorted quietly. "Then you'd not mind if I returned the favor."

"Why would you question me?"

"Call it my curiosity about a foreigner who's so interested in the martial arts that he would follow a practitioner of them to a sushi restaurant."

A light laugh shook him. "Is that all?" he questioned, quirking a slender brow.

I restrained myself from speaking the true thoughts that danced upon the surface of my mind. That I wanted to know more about the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen in my life. That I was curious as to what measurable history such an intriguing person had that would give him such an air of mystery and dark sadness.

That I was entirely infatuated with him. That I considered him the most exquisite person I'd ever laid eyes on. That every aspect of my person – body, mind and soul – desired him in ways both pure and filthy. That it was taking every last shred of self control that I contained to not reach out and curiously touch him, to test the suspicion that such a perfect being could not truly exist and see if he would wink from reality the moment he was in contact with something corporeal. That I could sense his shallow bitterness and his coyly covered misery, seeing those dark emotions as clearly as I can see the technical expertise of a fellow martial artist. That my heart terribly hurt to see such an angelic boy tainted by such black feelings and fervently wished to alleviate his pain.

His smile was vague as he stared at my eyes. For a moment, I wondered what exactly he was staring at – those abysmal depths leant me no clues as to what he was thinking. Was he reading those emotions that laid buried within me from my gaze? Was he seeing my longing?

With a light shrug, he nodded. "I concede. Ask what you will."

I blinked, startled by his quick acknowledgement and his simple grant of permission. A moment passed as I gathered my thoughts.

"You asked me of my heritage. What of yours?"

"Oh for Christ's sake, you had to start with the hard one," he helplessly laughed.

"You said your name is… Quatre Raberba Winner," I carefully said, pronouncing the name as foreign cultures would. "I don't recognize the nationality. Your enunciation also doesn't lend any clues. You don't have a distinct accent."

"I suppose not," the boy softly breathed. "When a person travels a lot, a person tends to lose that distinguishing mark. I've been traveling for so long that it's no surprise that my heritage would be difficult to determine."

"How long have you been traveling?" I asked as I lifted my bowl and sipped.

"You'd not believe me."

"Try me," I replied.

"How old do you believe me to be?"

"Fifteen."

He bowed his head slightly, a weak laugh flowing from his lips. "As said. You'd not believe me."

"I still want to know," I pressed.

"Why?"

"I just do."

"I'll not tell you," he quietly sighed.

"Why not?"

"Because. It would violate everything."

I frowned.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

I stumbled slightly as I was assisted towards the futon.

I'd had more than my share of sake and was feeling the pleasant effects more strongly than I'd suspected I would. Quatre had to assist me to the nearest hotel we could find – there was no way I could feasibly be expected to make it back to my instructor's dojo, to find my way to my bedroll.

I sank onto the thin mattress he had guided me to. Looking up at him, my vision hazed and my head pounding, I faintly smiled. "Thank you," I muttered, wanting to rest my head upon the roll he'd kindly rented for me for the night. "I'm sorry…" I started, halting as I stumbled over my words. I needed to apologize for inconveniencing him, but thinking about how to say it was rather difficult.

"You're not inconveniencing me," he said softly as he sat beside me, his hand lightly resting upon my shoulder in an attempt to help me maintain my balance.

"Business clients?" I slurred clumsily.

Quatre's soft laugh met my ears. "They can wait for tomorrow night," he answered. "I've got to make certain that the champion who enlightened me tonight is cared for until he can watch over himself once more."

"Too much," I partially blurted. I realize I sounded like a fool. However, my mouth wasn't cooperating with my sluggish brain and speaking the words I wished it to say. I'd intended to tell him that he was doing too much for me, and that I didn't' require so much attention. Especially from the beautiful angel that was he.

"I don't believe so," he quietly replied, his smile tender.

I don't know what exactly arose in me that encouraged me to make such a bold gesture. Indeed, I don't' want to know what I was thinking. All I know is that suddenly, my head was cleared of the pounding sensation granted by overindulgence and screaming at my body, questioning its actions even as my body refused to reject what it was doing.

I had leaned forward and laid my lips upon his.

To my surprise, after but a moment's hesitation he was eagerly returning that gesture.

This was one aspect of myself that I'd never shared with anyone. Not my parents while they'd dwelled in the world of the living, not my instructor, not my fellow pupils, not those I dealt with in the marketplace every day nor those individuals, scant as they were, that I considered to be friends. I'd never confessed to a living soul that my preference revolves about those of my own gender. It's not that I feared the rejection or humiliation – I feared nothing from others. Rather, I found such confessions distasteful and unnecessary. I simply maintained my solace, preferring the solitude I enjoyed during meditation and practice to flaunting myself and my burgeoning sexuality with another in frivolous display and needless waste.

And here I was, kissing a compete stranger that I'd met but a few hours and a bottle of sake ago.

To find that the perfect angel at my side did not reject my gesture but rather returned it in kind made my heart flutter helplessly like a cage-trapped bird between my ribs, feeling ready to burst free of its prison.

Pulling back, he smiled shyly. "Heero-kun… really. You don't even know me."

My mind, cleared by that touch, realized the reason in his statement. "I want to know you," I replied, lightly tracing his delicate chin with a thumb. "Tell me. Please."

He kissed me once again.

This time, as his touch lingered and his tongue lightly dipped into my mouth, I realized something I should have noted the first time we'd made physical contact – he was horribly cold. Even that thick muscle that lightly ran over my tongue and teeth was chilled.

Gripping his shoulders, I pulled him close, my feverish body hardly caring about the odd sensations my mind was thrusting into reality. Quatre obeyed my urgings, slipping without breaking our kiss onto my lap, straddling my hips and wrapping his slender legs about my waist without care to how wrinkled he was causing his suit to be. His slender body pressed solidly against mine, his lank frame nestling with natural ease against the curves of my own muscled length even as his arms slid about my torso and held me solidly, his fingers curling into my thin shirt and pulling sharply upon it, his manicured nails nearly digging through the fabric of my clothing to scratch at my back. I could barely contain my excitement at that sensual feeling, my desire roaring through my blood, driving my body to helplessly respond.

Pulling his lips from mine, his eyes dark and shining in the faint light that skittered from the lamp resting upon the lone table within the small hotel room he'd paid to rent (the lone window had a drape drawn across it, blocking the light from the sky's moon – those eyes were darker than the most exquisite emeralds rather than black as rolling sea waves), he pressed himself more firmly against me, rubbing himself over my aching lust. His fingers slid down my back, edging their way under my shirt and pulling it towards the ceiling.

I obediently lifted my arms, allowing him to shed that piece of fabric from me. As he laid his hands upon my chest, his thumbs lightly rubbing over my nipples, I groaned in shear delight before setting myself to the task of figuring out his confounding western clothing.

Soon enough I had him bereft of his suit's jacket and his tie, his shirt and his cravat, laid upon the futon and freed of his shoes, his socks, his pants and his undergarments. I found myself staring at a veritable work of Art. His body, perfectly proportioned in every way, covered by porcelain skin that was without flaw, was a living and breathing sculpture of loveliness, a veritable representation of an angel of my mother's Heaven resting upon that simple thin mat.

So very perfect….

He serenely smiled at me before rolling onto his stomach, presenting me with my inevitable destination.

I ignored the chill that surrounded my heated phallus, focusing instead on desire and fulfillment.

I hardly remember the rest of that night. The only things that stand out from that cloud of bliss, that event of beauty, are the shudder that took me when I came into him, the shivers that ran through my skin when he rested his arm across my chest while I lay beside him after weariness took my drained frame, and his soft whisper that I make certain to keep the drapes drawn across the window when the sun rose in the morning or he'd be forced to leave me.

I didn't want him to leave. Those drapes would stay shut.

They would stay shut forever.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

I'd awakened not to a pounding headache as I had dreaded I would – in fact, my head was suspiciously clear – but to the simple notes of a lonely violin.

Sitting up slightly, my nude body shivering slightly in the cool air of the hotel room, I let my eyes open minutely to peruse the room and seek out the source of the sound that was touching my ears. I spotted him in the shadows, leaning lightly against the thin wall of our room, situated as far from the faint light that slid through the drapes covering the small window that would allow our space access to the sun's warming rays as he could possibly be.

My eyes slid shut as I listened to the tender strains pouring from that instrument in my host's delicate hands.

It was then that my heart shuddered, moved so that tears formed upon my eyelids.

I'd never heard such perfection, such mastery! It was impossible – inhumanly precise, alien in its ability to open a person's ears, irrefutably forcing those who could listen to focus and comprehend.

And it was flooded with emotion. So flooded with emotion that my own soul was overpowered with what it conveyed, sympathizing and bleeding with every note that caressed it.

That simple music from that singular instrument revealed so much more than any words in any language ever could – in those notes was brought forth every aspect of the small violinist's spirit.

Slow steady notes dripped from the bow that slid over the strings of that caressed instrument, each with the slightest shiver of vibrato cast upon them by his delicate fingers. Each note carried its message to my ears.

Soft arrogance in the knowledge of his skills.

Pleasure in the feel of the strings below his fingers, a faint smile cast knowing that another was hearing their message.

Perfection garnered from years beyond measure of familiarization with that tool.

Those soft notes burst into a volatile crescendo, screeching free of the soft lull they'd lured me into. Jumping manically over strings, the bow skittered skillfully from one wire to the next upon the violin's raised template. Precise, sharp, harsh notes bit viciously rather than falling gently to softly permeate the air; these notes sought to shred the atmosphere, tearing into it with sharp talons with every staccato hit.

Violent memories.

Horrifying nightmares.

Witnessed to war, terrorism, hatred, discrimination.

Causing murder.

Bearing death's scythe.

A whimpered trill, drawing a close to the fierce beast that roared mercilessly from those worn strings.

Tiredness.

Sadness.

Soft resolution, a miserable sigh of defeat, terminating in silence.

His quiet exhalation met my ears as he lowered the bow. A few tense moments passed.

"Heero. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," he mutely apologized.

"I don't mind," I stated, still stricken by those emotions that had flooded the room but moments ago. My heart pounding with the realization that now, perhaps, I had a vague idea about what his tormented soul looked like, I closed my eyes. "Your music. I thought you said that perfection was unobtainable."

A defeated laugh oozed from those shadows. "Unobtainable in a human's life, yes. Are you proclaiming that was perfect?"

A simple nod was my answer.

"Heero… you're…"

Lifting a finger, I wiped an offending tear from my lashes. I hastily blinked them away. I was a strong martial artist. I shouldn't be so moved!

Yet I was. His music touched me to my base, moving me as nothing could. It had spoken not only his story, but also my own, drawing those hard and cold memories I had to light and giving them musical accompaniment that made the emotions that plagued me during those horrible events (the deaths of my parents, the Bakumatsu, the loneliness I'd experienced afterwards being an orphaned son of a gaijin woman trapped in Japan) more crisp and real than they'd been even when those events had been present reality.

"I'm sorry if I recalled bad memories," he quietly stated.

Rising from the futon, I joined him in the shadows and sat at his side. "It's alright. You were telling your own story?"

"Yes."

I arched a brow. "Perhaps you could tell it to me in words?"

"Heero… I told you last night. I can't-"

"Please."

His shoulders drooped as he seated himself and laid the violin down at his side. "You'd not believe anything. And it's best that you not know."

I scowled slightly before lightening my expression and shrugging. "Then tell me when you got the violin."

"Last night, after you'd fallen asleep. I decided that it was a decent time to meet with my clients rather than making them wait for tonight."

"So you've not slept at all?" I pressed, even as I seated myself beside him.

"A little," he said with a shrug. "Lack of sleep doesn't really bother me much."

"You look tired, though. You ought to rest if you're to optimally perform."

He laughed outright at that, his bell-toned giggle dulled and tarnished that morning. "Optimally perform, eh?"

"You aren't taking me seriously."

"Heero, what nationality was your mother?"

Ah, back to this again. I shrugged, deciding to entertain his questioning and answer him. After all, maybe if I pleased him with the quantity and quality of my statements, he'd finally reveal something of himself. "She was from the main body to our West. Not Dutch, though. I recall her speaking of Romania. She said it was near a great sea."

"Ah," he uttered with a nod. "What tales did she tell you?"

"Many. She spoke of her God and Heaven and Angels, mostly."

Arching a pale brow, he leaned closer to me, his soft voice tingling in my ear. "What about the darker aspect of her lands?"

"The Devil and his servants? She used to tell me those tales as well. Mostly to scare me to clean my room, obey my parents and get to sleep."

"Hm. How about other monsters of the night?"

I blinked a few times. Why was he so curious? And what was he pressing for? Cautiously I approached the question, drawing memories of Mother's tales from the darkest recesses of my rusted memory. "I recall that she spoke of demons. Ghosts. Werewolves. Vampires-"

"Did you ever believe her?" he interrupted.

I stared at him. "When I was a child. I grew out of that."

He glanced away, nodding once. "And so does everyone. Heero," he said, turning towards me suddenly, his eyes nearly glowing in the darkness, "what if you were to discover that your mother's stories were true?"

"What are you saying?" I softly breathed, my heart beginning to pound nervously in my chest.

Leaning forward, he pressed his chilled lips to the naked crook of shoulder and neck. I shivered uncontrollably, the reaction induced from the sudden chill upon my flesh, the memories of what we'd done during the past night, and the lust to repeat last night's activities at that simple touch.

I gasped, both in surprise and in pleasure, as he lightly bit down upon my flesh. Closing my eyes, I wrapped my arms around his small, slender frame, tugging it close to me.

I barely felt the prick of something penetrating my flesh. What I did feel, though, was wet blood welling upon my skin and his mouth eagerly sucking upon the wound that vitae leaked from. I couldn't move to push those lips away, though; instead, I laid my hand upon his blonde head, holding him in place, groaning as pleasure coursed my veins while as my life was being sipped delicately from my body.

Even as I was beginning to feel a bit light-headed, he pulled away. My mind oddly protested his movement – I wanted him back where he was, sucking upon my flesh, nuzzling my nape with his perfect little nose.

I blinked, staring as his pink tongue darted from between his lips to lift a droplet of blood from his lower lip. Reaching with a shaking hand, I lightly touched that area where he'd been suckling. It was moist, but I could locate no wound.

He kissed me. I tasted blood – my blood – upon his lips.

Suddenly I understood.

As much as my rational mind screamed against the possibility, as much as my brain tried to disprove what I was tasting and what I was feeling, I knew it was truth.

The blush upon his cheeks, made possible by my blood coursing through his veins, was lovely.

My mouth opened and shut a few times, words eluding me.

Finally, I was able to make a statement.

"No wonder you wanted me to keep the drapes shut."

His faint smile was my answer.

I was not at all shocked now to see elongated fangs, previously hidden by his lush lips, now brought to light.

_tbc..._


	3. Moonlit Meeting

Sorry it took me almost a year to come out with the next chapter of this, but I've been busy at work and producing other fics in other genres. Many apologies!

I took the time to rewrite this chapter after watching all of Gundam W again, so I think I got most everyone actually on track so far as their characterizations are concerned. If you see glaring problems, let me know. I love Duo. And I especially love the combustible chemistry between him and Heero. Heh heh.

Disclaimer: I in no way own Gundam W. Don't sue me; I'm simply an E6 (and frocked at that) in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.

_-BEGIN FIC-_

_Moonlit Meeting_

The waif notes of a flute danced upon the air.

Music softly and delicately seeped from speakers secreted about the humongous manor, filling the air completely yet quietly, allowing for conversation yet being of substantial enough presence to still be audible despite the dull racket.

I sipped lightly from my glass, my eyes partially closed.

As much as I hated the man, I had to admit – my dear Quatre's little pet did have a touch with that flute.

He was nothing compared to my sire. Of course, he'd not had the time my sire had under his belt to perfect his music. And in my opinion, he didn't have the natural talent Quatre has, either. But some would say I'm biased. Perhaps they're right.

I let a quiet sigh seep past my lips, the breath drawn for that exhalation being more for dramatics than anything (see, sire? Being around you for these last hundred and forty-odd years has been teaching me the proper way to be a Toreador. I was never such a drama king before) as I truly had no necessity to breath. Shaking my navy-blue suit jacket's and accompanying silver-sheen shirt's sleeves a bit down my arm and away from my hand, I checked the time on my platinum Rolex wristwatch. Ten o'clock. Still the Ventrue primogen had yet to show. Quatre was certain to be in a raging foul mood.

No one but no one shows up two hours late for one of the Prince's parties. Not unless that someone wanted to dig his social grave.

I stuffed my hands into my Italian suit's front pockets, skulking down the plush ruby carpeting that lined the grand eggshell-colored corridor with its authentic golden scrollwork along the baseboards and ceiling panels highlighted grandly by flickering golden oil-lamps. I was determined to travel towards the great ballroom where the grand festivities were in full swing. Giving a cursory glance to one of Rashid's, and thusly by association and Bond Quatre's numerous ghouls who stood beside the door, I gave the creature a slight nod as he opened the door to ease my progression to my sire's side.

I was always courteous to Quatre's ghouls when I was in their presence. Those thirty-nine men he had follow him to his various estates, his loyal entourage of subjects gathered from the driest deserts of Arabia, were hard customers to deal with. Even with the amount of proficiency I've garnered in my Art these last fourteen decades I've practiced since meeting my Quatre, I had serious doubts about how many of his highly trained and wonderfully maintained ghouls I could get through in a serious fight. They battled to the eternal death when it came to their dear Master Quatre, each armed with swords when we first met and trained and equipped with the latest firearms once rifles and muskets proved to be effective and reliable. Now these bastards were fitted with Desert Eagle Magnums and Beretta AR 70/90s, all with illegal phosphorous ammunition to boot making them horribly dangerous against Kindred, human, changeling and wolf alike. On top of that, each had partaken of Rashid's blood when they were at the height of their physical capabilities – not a single one of his personal army was over middle-aged, each fit and able as hell with rippling muscles, perfectly preserved flesh and hard onyx eyes. They couldn't begin to look ridiculous in their vests and pantaloons, or with each curly haired head bearing a red fez.

Not exactly a force one wants to be on the bad side of. Especially not when one had already been threatened with a stake through the heart and being lashed to the chimney to say 'Hello' to Mr. Sun if one dared to strike against Quatre's new little pet, as that would make Master Quatre unbearably sad. No one dares make Master Quatre sad, damn it all.

I had no doubts that Abdul, Ahmed and Auda would not hesitate to do it, either. Rashid, that bastardized Assemite that let lead the fez-patrol of Doom and had been bloodbound to Quatre since only God knows when (long before my time. Impossibly long before my time. Seeing as how these damned personal servants of his have been lapping at the Assemite jackass' heels since the Crusades, who the hell knows. He could've been bound to my sire for hundreds of years prior, for all I'm aware), would approve of it, too.

He appreciated me taking his place as Quatre's premier vampiric protector as much as I appreciated that damned mortal pet taking my place in Quatre's bed.

Dark eyes looked not unkindly at me as I walked past. "Your sire awaits. Please ease his spirits; the Ventrue primogen has made him quite irate," he quietly said.

"Hn," I acknowledged with a slight nod, stepping past the most junior ghoul of the self-proclaimed Maguanac Corps with silent footfalls.

I stepped into the grand ballroom and was swept into the artistry of the Toreador party.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

A Toreador party can be one of the most wondrous yet horrible events one ever has the pleasure or sheer misfortune of attending.

Upon its most superfluous layer, it was a grand and glorious array of riches and artistry, unmatched in even the most spectacular of museums about the globe. My sire's parties were always the stereotype against all other parties were compared.

Richly outfitted, these parties were meant to be an extravagant show of wealth and impossibly good taste. Only the most lavish mansions were utilized for such events. For this particular party, we weren't using our manor in the City, but rather Quatre's beach house, a 'simple' five thousand square foot complex sprawling upon lush grasses in a private cove upon the Pacific's front with the whitest, purest sands upon California's coastline lapping invitingly against the back porch's bottom wooden steps. It was a single-storied masterpiece of modern architecture with grand swept ceilings towering nearly twenty feet at their peeks, lavishly sided in the most expensive of hardwood and painted a tasteful soft eggshell white as to not clash horribly with the greenery or the startlingly blue sea behind it. The roof was laid out in brick-red ceramic tiling with sculpted edges, each individual plate screened to prevent birds, insects and debris from daring to taint Quatre's hideaway's roof. The porches were cut of hard white oak and varnished perfectly, maintained by private servants who lived in the impressive villa's expansive capacity for the sole purpose of preserving it for those moments the house's Master wished to utilize it. Beach furniture was set out back at all times, umbrellas tastefully designed by private designers.

Inside it got even more ridiculous.

Not a single window was without beveled edging. Not a single wall lacked gold accenting along its baseboards or along the junction between ceiling and drywall. Not a single ceiling lacked fanciful scrollwork along its panels, making a person feel as if they were walking underneath some golden representation of Heaven's clouds. Gold lanterns, burning real oil and lit by electrically driven pilot-lights, lit those glorious corridors, the flames held within meticulously cleaned crystalline orbs topping those lanterns causing dancing patterns to skitter along those gold-laced ceilings. The carpeting throughout the entire house was plush and ruby in color, fading only in the kitchen and the ballroom to black marble tiles. The walls were painted eggshell as the outside of the house was, once again fading in the ballroom and kitchen to a more silver sheen to accompany that dark tile. Kitchen appliances were top-line, black with silver trim, and astonishingly seamlessly put together. The ballroom featured chandeliers sculpted from platinum and white gold with crystalline shards dangling from hooks, with diamond accent globes hanging from long white-gold chains from the center of those chandeliers. Small electric lights made those chandeliers glitter in soft white display, casting dazzling light everywhere the eye dared to look.

And not a single wall was left bare.

Every piece of artwork that hung within that beach house was a masterpiece. Every piece was original. And none was shipped to any other manor when Quatre chose another location to throw a party in – that was just another tool to display his power and taste; repetitious usage of a single location or a collection or art would be distastefully tacky at a Toreador function. Therefore, every portrait, painting, sculpture and tapestry that hung within the manor's confines, hid in softly lit alcoves or simply seated out in a massive room's spaces for viewing were specific to that house alone. The beach house's theme was 'Heaven', so most of his pieces here were Renaissance and Gothic in nature, though a few from ancient Islam and some renowned Buddhist artists were amongst the conglomeration. Yes, it was Heaven, walking amongst multitudes of cultures' artists' renditions of Angels, the Eternal Afterlife and the Father in that gloriously lavish arena.

All of that was simply the stage – background for the events taking place.

Parties were not just gatherings of good friends and potential allies to talk art and sip fine drink (most of my sire's parties were exclusively Kindred and their personal ghouls only, so blood was available for all to partake in), but a place to pretend to relax and feed without fear of repercussion or disruption of the illusion that maintained our safety from those who would see us terminated – the Masquerade.

They were also the biggest political staging grounds ever created, making them some of the most dangerous places to be. People were made and broken. Allegiances were wrought and demolished. Fates were crafted and sealed. One minute a young neonate could be the talk of the rising stars of the City, the next a crestfallen castaway destined for exile or perhaps even death at the moment the sun rose from the east.

Especially when the Prince of the City was the one throwing that particular party.

To be at a Toreador party was to be in the midst of a cloud of double talk, of lies and deceit and half-truths, of allies and enemies who could change their persuasions in an instant. It was an environment where a verbal stab was just as deadly as a stake through the heart, where social ostracizing could spell certain doom for an individual within the City.

I was amazed that I've managed this long.

Of course, considering who my sire is, I don't have much to worry about. Perhaps that is my only saving grace.

This particular party had a plethora of different functions. First off, it was to display some of Quatre's newest requisitions from Europe. He'd just acquired a previously unknown piece by Monet (I personally have never been one for the earliest – correction, any – Impressionistic art, so I didn't like it), and a sculpture of Archangel Uriel that had finally fallen from and hence been sold after refurbishing from Notre Dame Cathedral. I thought it was a bit much to put such in a beach house – indeed, to put one on a wall overshadowing a grand piano and the other in the northern corner of a dining room – but I kept my opinions to myself. I'd always been of the opinion that art belonged in museums.

Not that I fault my sire at all. I realize that it's a powerful display of wealth and ability on the part of the Kindred, and that such an ostentatious gathering for the eyes of Kindred alone is key in cinching allies and command within our hierarchy. Power is everything, and the more rare and original and unique art a Toreador has, the more obviously powerful that Toreador is. Power is the key to safety and realization of ambitious goals.

Not that art alone is power. The possession of art is an allusion to the amount of influence one possesses, thereby an indicator of the power of the Toreador over others.

Not to say Quatre doesn't have his own personal power. I for one wouldn't tangle with him.

Or his personal army.

Or, if I was someone other than myself, me.

Or, to a lesser extent, his allies that dwell within the City and obey his whims if not for their own personal safety then for their own personal agendas.

I'm still at heart a simple man who believes in museums is all. That's one thing I appreciate my sire for over all other Toreador – when he runs out of room in his mansions and acquires new pieces, he sells off the old to such civil establishments. Hence how he obtained his fortune (that, and his 'family business' of architecture and general contractor building doesn't hurt to bring in a steady cash flow, either).

My master had recently replaced an Egyptian sarcophagus with a tasteful sculpture of Isis upon its lid and a Picasso painting (hated that one) for these two new pieces, and felt the need to flaunt them.

Also, his silly pet had just composed the symphonic piece that was flowing throughout the manor during the party. That piece had already won considerable recognition. The entire damned musical community was breathing the name Trowa Barton like a prayer, and my sire was lavishing in it.

Trowa.

Nngh.

Silly brat, barely in his twenty-eighth year. Talented youngster, I suppose. Had a ridiculous fall of hair dangling in his face that he could not fix to save his worthless life, and horridly bland green eyes. One thing I've always been attracted to are eyes; my Quatre's glimmer with passion and at times love and at other times misery and sadness, that Duo's glisten with life.

Funny that I should recall the boy with his chestnut braid while wandering through my sire's ballroom, trying to find him and that moron who's replaced me as his love.

Passing the elongated table that rested along the room's western wall, I slid my emptied glass onto its silvery-fabric covered top. The bowl with its steaming, fresh vitae called to me to sample its goods, but I couldn't bring myself to lift another dripping ladle-full. I had things to do, after all, no matter how inviting that topless head with its bloody contents was.

I narrowly avoided conversation with one of Quatre's guests; Dorothy always was a royal pain. A true Brujah to her very depth. At first I'd not been able to figure out why the warrior Clan would take one as seemingly delicate as her into their fold, but upon further investigation I'd found that she had a bloodlust that was almost unmatched in the world of the Undead, an eye that appreciated the spilling of blood not just for feeding but also for sport, and a taint that screamed of wrongs done to her in the past that had driven her to lust for the deaths of all who might wrong or hurt her. She was a capable creature driven by vengeance and sorrow, deadly with a gun and deadlier with her mind in all plots and politics.

I almost would say that her Clan would be more to my liking, but they see fighting as a simple means to an end, a tool for gathering power and strength. They don't see it as anything elegant or unifying. They don't see the Art resting in its folds. All they see is the potential for grasping territory. So very animalistic, almost upon the level of the mutt-Gangrel. So very sad.

Dorothy Catalonia fit into that caste perfectly. Her obnoxiousness so far as me? I couldn't stand it. Always prattling on about me being a 'true soldier' and regretting my loss to those 'pathetically weak frivolous art-worshipping fools.' She never did realize that I would fail to be a part of the Brujah ideology, that my sire saw in me my devotion to the harmony between mind, spirit and body and not simply a devotion to power. That my sire realized the truth behind my desires.

Her ghoul was no better, though similarly annoying for entirely different reasons.

I pitied that girl, really. She was so clueless, so innocent, so fooled by the conniving Brujah whose blood she'd devoted herself to. She was no creature who should be bound to darkness, her naivety stolen by the Kindred of the Camarilla. She was a peace-loving vision, a pure princess enmeshed in a Masquerade she could now never hope to escape from with her paltry life.

Poor girl.

The fact that she looked to me as some sort of hero, some rescuer of the fallen innocent, had me on edge though. She never looked at me as I am – another of the Kindred, another who feeds upon her kin for my own survival. She's taken it into her mind that I am above all those who surround her because my heart still moves with some measure of humanity (that in of itself is for the simple fact that the ideologies of the Toreador allow the human heart to continue to 'live' – it is, after all, the inspiration for all Art and the only thing capable of understanding and appreciating it). So while she'd defend Dorothy to the bitter end being hopelessly enamored with her, she breaths my name in soft appreciation and longing.

If she ever screamed my name from the top of a skyscraper again, I swore to have one of Rashid's fez-patrol abduct her and toss her into a river.

I don't really mean that. I couldn't harm the girl, no matter how much some tiny measure of my mind cackles when it comes up with diabolical thoughts such as that one. She's too pure, too innocent, too much of a victim of the world of darkness to destroy. Rather, she's a being to be protected from further degradation, if for simple principal. There are many I've had the misfortune of having watched Kindred destroy – if I could save even one innocent, perhaps I could remove a small measure of the darkness that taints my own soul, that prevents me from perfecting my own heart.

Just because I desire to protect and perhaps save her some day, though, doesn't mean I want to converse with her. One dance two parties ago, and the girl is infatuated.

I fought desperately to slide my way through the considerable crowd, utilizing the present members of the Ventrue Clan to make my escape.

A moment later, I spotted the person I was looking for. No one could miss that waterfall of bangs. Especially not when that waterfall was atop a head that crested over six feet in height. And Quatre would be with him; these days, they were obnoxiously inseparable.

I approached them, hands still stuffed in my expensive designer suit's pockets, ignoring the urge to reach to my neck and loosen my crimson-red tie with its diamond tie tack.

"Heero!" Quatre called out, his voice bright and his sea-blue eyes sparkling vividly. "There you are!"

"Aa. Quatre," I greeted, letting my jealous eyes look him over.

Quatre always looks regal, whether or not he's trying. When he does try, the result is phenomenal.

Dressed in a solid black silken suit cut to fit every angle of his lithe body and joined with black leather shoes, his pale skin and soft platinum-blonde hair shone brilliantly in contrast. His shirt, as black as his suit, was discernable only by the simple fact that it did not share the barely-visible thin dark-gray pin striping that lined that suit. Laid atop of that shirt was a sea-blue tie, matched perfectly to his eyes, the only shot of color on that impressive ensemble. His rings, light and golden to match his hair and his house's accents, glittered upon thin fingers and sported delicate blue-topaz gems, chosen not for any worth but for their color. A golden hoop looped through his left earlobe, a delicate golden chain running from its bottom to a small hole atop that ear's curve, highlighting his ear's gentle bend artistically. And, fitted to his house's theme, small soft black wings crafted of real black swans' feathers and looking from every angle impossibly genuine sprang from that suit's back, the harness that held them in place hidden behind the jacket's fabric with only those grand testimonies to my sire's eccentric but oddly lovely tastes poking through slits deliberately cut in his Giovanni clothing.

He belonged in his collection of angels.

It was difficult to hide my lust, considering that with the amount of blood I'd already consumed within the last two hours since the party's commencement my body had more than enough stock to be ready and roaring to go. However, one glance to his companion was enough to freeze what warmth flowed through my veins.

"Doesn't he clean up nicely?" Quatre chirped, noting the direction of my gaze and ignoring (or perhaps spiting) my heart.

Yes, he did clean up nicely. As nicely as a gangly, horrible little mortal brat can. Quatre had managed to get the barbaric beanpole to slither himself into an emerald green silk dress shirt (the lout still refused to wear a tie). A simple gold-colored, obviously not authentic wristwatch looped around his wrist. His shirt tucked into black silk slacks that were held in place by a black belt sporting a tasteful gold-colored buckle. He had black dress shoes shoved on his feet in place of his typical combat boots, completing an almost tasteful package.

Now if only he could do something about that horrible head (and get himself out of my rightful place at my sire's side), he might almost be attractive.

I shrugged in response to Quatre's statement. "Hn," I replied as I returned my gaze to him. "You look stunning."

He ducked his head, his cheeks coloring – he'd had more than his share of the bowl's fresh liquid as well, it seemed – and smiled. "And you. I can't believe you wore a suit instead of your workout clothing."

"Give me some credit, Quatre," I blandly stated.

I froze as his hands lightly pulled on my jacket's lapels, straightening them. "I do. It's just that you showed up to my last event in your tank top and those spandex shorts of yours. I like this much better."

"I thought you liked the spandex."

Trowa cleared his throat, looking between the two of us.

I glowered at him, hoping desperately to freeze him to death with the chilly daggers I prayed my eyes were throwing.

"Oh, come now, Trowa. Don't be jealous," Quatre said with a smirk, glancing over his shoulder. "Heero's my childe. I'm allowed to be as forward with him as I damned well please."

A snort escaped my nostrils, my eyes reflecting my pleasure that for this moment I held station above the unibang. Looping an arm around Quatre, I gave him a tender squeeze – not too much, of course. He'd been Trowa's for the last five years now.

I just had to be patient; Quatre would eventually be mine again.

Until that time, I had another who needed my protection….

I wondered what he was doing at that time.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

The focal point of the third of my sire's party's objectives finally arrived, a full two and a half hours late.

I was thoroughly disappointed even though I knew that the man's arrival was actually one of Quatre's premier focuses. I had been enjoying a little bit of time with Quatre, having firmly removed him from the Barton-brat's side and left the green-clad moron standing about with Dorothy and Relena. We'd gone to the piano, thick and hot drinks in slender champagne flutes, to converse with one of Quatre's Venture allies that he held incredible sway with. He'd been leaning against me, allow me to wrap him in a protective embrace, pressing his winged back to my chest as he settled the back of his head comfortably against my shoulder. The moment the man got close, though, my sire removed himself from my grasp and straightened his suit jacket, his pleasant and relaxed smile and calm eyes vanishing into the glistening slits and veracious sneer of a predator on the trail of a wounded animal.

After all, this man was a reason for our little party. Toreador parties are never thrown without purpose, and are never as innocent as they may appear to be.

Toreador parties are some of the largest political scheme-pits to be had. I used to think that the primogen meetings were fierce, that watching my sire lord over those who headed the separate Clans of the Camarilla was cutthroat and vicious. Ha. That was before I'd been witness to what truly goes on under the finery and alcohol-laced blood of a social gathering of the artistic Kindred.

Quatre's purpose behind the party, beside displaying the aptitude of his slave and his new possessions to further enhance his untouchable power and incredible status within his City, was too investigate the Ventrue primogen. Quatre had been holding suspicions concerning the elderly Kindred's loyalty to him as the City's Prince for quite some time, and recent events had him on edge enough to attempt to engage the man in a setting more convoluted and coerce than that of a formal meeting.

Since my sire and I had arrived in the newly settled lands that would be referred to later in time as the state of California, since he had established his City of Angels and firmly planted his foot as the reigning Kindred of the region, he had initiated and enforced simple rules reflective of every other City that rested under Camarilla rule. The Masquerade was to be revered and adhered to at all times. Diablerie, the cannibalism of Kindred by their own, was forbidden unless performed by the Prince himself, and then only under the permission of the Judicars. The Prince's word was to be law, regardless of Clan ideologies said word might violate. All in all, standard fare. The only additional rule that Quatre had bothered instituting upon the City's inception was that no phosphorous was to be permitted within the City's boarders without his explicit approval.

Phosphorous, after all, is unusually deadly to Kindred. Quatre wisely judged that it would be best if he, the ruling force within his territory, were to have knowledge of where the fatal substance is and who's hands it was in.

As a result, there were very few persons who could be found with the flammable ammunition so frequently toted by Slayers. Quatre's Assemite friend had his Maguanac Corps outfitted with it. A young detective in the LAPD who'd had far too much exposure to the prevalent darkness that permeated his mortal city had a mysterious connection outside of my sire's City – his possession of the substance was known to the Prince, though, so he was in no danger for his smuggling of the ammunition into our terrain. So far as my sire was concerned, those afore mentioned individuals were the only persons allowed to tote it.

When a young woman had brandished a pistol seventeen years ago against one of those crazed Malkies that my sire retained contact with and brought him down with phosphorous bullets, an immediate investigation was commenced. I'd gone to New York to study for a possible connection between the Sabbatt ringleader of the Big Apple who was known for his ties with phosphorous rings and the lady who'd gunned down our would-be ally who happened to be a liaison of a ghoul of the prominent Venture primogen.

We've been covertly tracing the possible connection for the better part of two decades with next to no leads. Quatre was getting antsy for results. Hence the party and the invitation extension to the Ventrue Clan.

I couldn't help but narrow my eyes and glower as the huge doors to the grandiose ballroom of Quatre's beach manor swung open, one of Rashid's ghouls bowing politely and announcing the arrival of Duke Dermail, primogen of Ventrue.

There has always been something about this man I couldn't stand.

Since his initial arrival in the small boomtown Quatre was overseeing the development of, he and my sire have butted heads fiercely. The antiquated Ventrue believed as many of his Clan do – that theirs is the Clan meant for rule and any who would dare stand in their way are naught but frivolous dreamers and fools to be disposed of. The man, most unfortunately, had the weight of prestige and experience along with centuries worth of history behind him and the backing of some very influential members of his Clan. Such never swayed Quatre; indeed, my sire would just laugh when the ancient Duke's venerable status was brought to the forefront of concerned conversation, winking mischievously and telling us all not to give another care to the matter.

Embraced in the late sixteen hundreds, the man was trapped forever in the throes of aristocracy and Renaissance flair. He was never seen in any attire, at least publicly, differing from what he arrived to Quatre's modern party in.

I looked from one to the other, scoffing internally at the difference.

Compared to the heavenly beauty of my sire, the Duke was sorely misplaced. Whereas my dear golden-headed angel was weightless and bright, the heavy ruffles, puffy pantaloons and tight white stockings of the aristocrat made him so very earthy and heavy. His clunky loafers thumped heavily on the ground as he walked in, his loosely sleeved arms spreading to the sides as he smirked, his grayed moustache curling with his facial expression and his thick, neatly trimmed beard passing from his neck attire to display the slightest hint of wrinkled flesh. With his ridiculous ruffle about his neck and his hefty cape trailing behind him all in the most garish of clashing blues and reds, he looked as those men in the Renaissance paintings I could almost bring myself to appreciate (almost, as they were all so stiff and boring. No life, no glitter of any spirit at all was ever captured in those painted eyes) always did. Primp, proper, excessively dull. A horribly overdone and stalwart portrait brought to life – a terrible contrast to the glowing frivolous energy that constituted my sire.

Once Quatre had told me the history of the Duke, preparing me for what I was considering going up against when I first began to suspect the Ventrue primogen's affiliation with the phosphorous wielding criminal who'd intruded in our City. I hadn't cared enough to retain that much of it – just that the man was embraced due to his vicious nature and his business genius, that he'd owned half of jolly old England back in his day and was a trusted comrade of some random King, blah blah blah. All I had to know was that the man was nine generations removed from Cain; I knew I had him in sheer power provided by the hypocritical 'purity' of the taint in my veins. My sire, I had discovered in the nineteen forties when he'd first started forging his alliance with the childe of the ancient primogen, was much closer to our Father, and thus so was I; I would have him in ability and strength despite his two-century lead on me in age.

The Duke swaggered in, his small dark eyes bright and glistening as he chuckled brightly. "Quatre, I apologize for arriving so late. Traffic was simply terrible."

"Oh, I'm certain it was, dearest Duke Dermail," Quatre smoothly returned, his sneer deepening in ferocity as he lightly crossed his arms over his chest. "Especially at this time of night. Why, your dear childe was an entire ten minutes late himself. Worry not. I have pardoned him for his tardiness."

Ouch.

I forcibly suppressed the shudder I felt attempting to work itself out onto my skin. Quatre was being blunt and forward – this wasn't going to be a pretty meeting at all.

Clearing my throat, I nodded once to Quatre. "I'm heading out, sire. I've still got things to finish before the night's over."

Quatre flashed me a brilliant smile, lifting a hand to grant me a lighthearted wave. "Of course, of course! Dearest Heero, please feel free to leave with my blessings. I expect to see you come sunrise."

"Hai," I responded with a slight bow in recognition of the order. With a passing glance to the smug Duke, I stepped out of the grand hall and away from the deadly party that had just fully swung into reality.

That was a situation I didn't want to be within a ten-mile radius of.

---)))000(((---)))000(((---)))000(((---

I nearly wiped my brow as relief washed over me, feeding from my relatively safe distance finally obtained from the dangerous coastline where my sire's manor was situated. I'd finally parked my car in a massive parking garage just off of Hollywood, making my way with slow and determined steps past the Manse Chinese Theater. Perhaps I was indeed a little overdressed for the area given the looks that were continually falling upon me from the eyes of curious late-night tourists and party-goers, but I couldn't be bothered with changing into anything more appropriate. The longing to escape what was certain to be a figuratively explosive detonation of fury from Quatre and the repercussions that would pour from the venerable Duke was more overwhelming than any concern as to what intrigued stares or social blunders I would be making by wandering the avenues of Tinsel Town in the late evening wearing an obtusely expensive Italian designer suit and a Rolex.

My eyes swept over every star that lined my path, the curiosity I had in the treasured walk burned from years of passage down this very road. I could hardly care any longer about whose names were enshrouded in immortality by the silly associations that maintained the area. When the concept had started and been new and fresh, I had found it fascinating and had actually devoted my attention to it. However, as true talent faded from sight and mediocre poseurs were granted stars to be trod upon by the common man, I quickly lost interest. If something was not going to make eternal those with true artistry and talent, then it was worthless.

The only true immortality for those of greatness lay in the beauty of the embrace, the reception of the cursed taint we herald as our salvation and damnation with every missing heartbeat. Not some silly star on a sidewalk. Not some slab of concrete that's been stepped in.

My shoes scuffed loudly over the pavement as I pressed effort into every step. I didn't want to move silently, damn it all. I wanted to make noise.

Noise drew my mind from its hyperactive imaginings and worrying.

Quatre and I knew quite well the villainous intentions of the Ventrue primogen. We knew he was responsible for the smuggling of phosphate into our City. We knew his desires to rule our precious City of Angels and his longing to see my Quatre staked and spit before the flames of the sun. We knew his depreciated appreciation of the Toreador, granting us only a vague acknowledgement that the City we'd built was something quite great for something so very young.

He would stop at nothing to wrest it from my sire's fingers.

Such is to be expected, even amongst the Clans of the Camarilla. Funny, I'd always found it.

We Kindred are threatened from all sides, from all possible vectors at all times.

The wolves and the graceful dead have never been on civil terms with one another, both blaming the other for the superstitions of the human populations of the cities and townships we rely on for survival. Both of us most intriguingly rely on humans for survival, for their blood and flesh to sustain us and their imagination and artistry to motivate us. Yet we can not bring ourselves to share our territories or share our prey. They bumble as autistic imbeciles through the night, their graceless figures scrawling terror through human hearts that makes them shun all creatures of the night. They flail visibly, failing to hide their true natures, drawing nightmarish fright down upon us all.

The changelings? The mages? Neither one of them would be stricken with sadness to witness the death of all Kindred. Rather they would assist any who would make it possible. To the changelings we are a threat. To the mages we are a gathering of like power. We threaten their artificial superiority, our natural abilities the envy of those magi who must struggle to harness anything of our like, our cunning and Clannish embracement and protection of one another the bane of those wild pixies who lust to take our position as top run of the echelon of mysticism.

The Settites, wretched worshippers of their ancient snake god, are another thorn in our proverbial sides. Like the wolves they lust for our territories. Like the mages they are jealous of our power. Like the ghosts and wraiths they find our dismissal of true death and our ability to continue to walk the world of the living baneful. Like the humans they fear our power, striving to overpower and demolish us rather than to flee as they should into the shadows of obscurity where they truly belong.

The Sabbot – those Kindred gone foul, those Kindred who cannot rightly be called Kindred any longer, are perhaps one of our greatest external threats. Tainted to monstrous extents, their hearts completely demolished and their brains twisted to absolution by the touch of Cain's maddening darkness, they can not distinguish the remains of humanity they once may have had from the animalistic beasts they have become. As us, they bond together – however, their loose gatherings are marked by betrayal, by mad diablerie, by knives through backs and allegiances held only for prey or power. They had no honor remaining in their entire collective – but as they were Kindred as we were, rogue as they might be, they hold considerable power. Their wild natures embraced and unleashed, they're a remarkable force.

Last but certainly not least were perhaps the most hilariously dangerous of all of our external adversaries – those who had their humanity intact, their hearts still beating thunderously within their breasts. Those who were mortal, their years slowly ticking away, their eyes viewing the world in both day and night's lights. Those who set their eyes upon the truth, who realized that the tales of the denizens of the moon's reign were not simply fantasies and fairy tales wrought to frighten children into praying to a deity or obeying their parents. Those who chose to not submit themselves to their rightful roles as prey for we who would hold superiority over them, but who chose instead to fight back against those who would hunt. Like that officer in the LAPD whose phosphorous bullets were known to our Prince. Like the woman who'd destroyed the Malkavian ally we'd had seventeen years ago. Slayers.

Quite silly that with so many external threats to our continued prosperity that we should fight amongst one another.

Just because we were all of the Camarilla did not mean that we ever saw eye to eye.

Every Clan was different – every holding an individual ideology, every holding a remarkably unique history and viewpoint of the truth of power.

And every Clan believed it was completely in the right. So very ridiculous.

Perhaps one day the Camarilla would realize the truth – the views of the Toreador were the most pure, the most promising, and the least tainted visions by which to lead an everlasting existence. Only by the ways of the Clan to which I belonged would we Kindred come to perfection and peace and ultimate power.

I cringed as I very nearly ran into a still figure.

A graceful, perfectly executed step and a slight shift of my right shoulder cleared me clearly of the breathing obstruction to my impromptu journey. To casual observation, it might have looked completely intentional, deliberate, planned. To my calculated glower, it was a mark of my lack of effective watching of my surroundings, a sign of a blunder I should not be committing after so much time dedicated to the perfection of my senses.

"Woah, sorry sir!" the person I'd so very nearly come into physical contact professed.

I merely grunted in response, taking a scant moment to lift my gaze from the walk I trod upon to set my eyes upon the individual who'd dared to speak to me.

I was frozen in place.

Eyes wide, simulated breath halted as my focus on the continuance of my curtain of false mortality slid away, I felt my dry mouth slag open slightly leaving naught but my upper lip to cover the light points of my fangs. My hands slid impotently out of my pockets to dangle uselessly at my sides, my shoes scraped indignantly upon the sidewalk I had been traipsing over.

Cobalt blue eyes, so very dark they were nearly violet, blinked at me. A sheepish grin curled the corners of a long mouth sporting thin yet expressive lips. Full cheeks verily puffed out with the smile that was pushing them, a smile that exposed glistening white teeth. Chestnut bangs brushed over slender, gracefully arched eyebrows that sported casually above those full eyes and their thick black lashes. A long, thick braid of brown strands touched with honey and gold wove its way over a slim right shoulder, its tendrils brushing along a plain white t-shirt. Sneaker-clad feet inched about on the ground, the motion of the jittery legs that connected those feet to the boy before me barely made known by the rustling of baggy blue pants with more pockets than any person should ever rightly need.

He was lively, his breath bright and buoyant as it billowed in and out of his lungs. His eyes shined brilliantly in the pale moonlight that cast its dim glow over us. His slim, delicate fingers fidgeted nervously with the end of that luscious braid, betraying his nervousness.

He was beautiful.

I let my head sag into a nod, shaking myself deliberately out of the trance the vision before had so very nearly spiraled me into. I drew a deliberate breath through my nose, clearing my throat roughly before my voice would return to me. "No need to apologize."

With a bright turn of that nervous smile into a bright grin, he turned to walk away.

"Wait," I found myself calling a moment later.

I blinked, shocked with my own behavior.

He turned, staring at me curiously. "Yeah?" he responded after a pregnant pause stilled the air between us.

Well, I'd already added a few more nails to my already existent coffin. With a determined sigh, I focused my gaze on those marvelously expressive violet eyes. "Where are you off to?"

He crossed his arms, one eye remaining wide and curious while the other narrowed slightly, his lips twisting from that pleasant and friendly grin into something considerably more mischievous. "Why do you ask?"

A snort burst from my nostrils. "I was thinking to apologize for almost running into you with a drink. But if such is the attitude I'll receive from you, forget it."

As I turned to walk away, I heard the tamping of his sneakers on the sidewalk, rapidly approaching. His hand found its way to my suit's jacket. "Hey, buddy! Just hold up a minute here," he said with a flippant, friendly tone. "Now, do my ears betray me or did I just hear some strange guy I almost ran into in the middle of the night on Hollywood Boulevard offer to get me a drink?"

"Come to your own conclusion."

He planted his sneakers, chuckling as he practically forced me to stop my progression down the roadway. "Huh. You are a strange one. So, where are you taking me?"

I turned my eyes, staring at the odd child who held my sleeve.

"Going to answer me some time this century, pal?"

"You're not appropriately dressed for many of the establishments I know," I blandly replied.

"Oh, ha de dah. Who said I drink at any of those snoody joints? C'mon. If you don't have something in mind, I know the perfect place."

I grunted even as I followed his lead, the boy having decided to march off in a direction quite different from the one I'd previously chosen. Ah, going into the more decrepit areas of the City, I noticed.

"So, what's your name? Or do I just call you 'short, stoic and glaring' all night?"

I huffed brightly. "Heero Yuy."

"Duo Maxwell. Now that we're acquainted, it won't feel so odd to get smashed together," he cheekily replied.

_to be continued…_

Review Replies:

demonsbaby69777: Thanks much for the review! It's a year late, but here's an update.

SkittleGoddess: I fear that fics like this may have become quite commonplace by this time, so your praise about this being unlike anything you'd read before might be moot by now. Sheesh.

MornMeril: Eh heh heh… sorry it took so long to get the next update out. Next one won't take so long if it's asked for. Promise! (whimper)


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